Apple is expected to unveil the brand new iPad Mini on October 23rd, during a special event that has already been announced. Well, it appears that part of their strategy to gain a big enough stock for initial launch is phasing out the $400 iPad 2, to make room for a bigger iPad Mini production.

Rob Cihra from Evercore Partners mentioned this strategy in a note to investors, also saying that Apple’s vision involves “clearer product tiers”. The same expert believes that the Cupertino giant will sell around 7 million mini iPads in the December quarter alone. A total number of 26 million units of the iPad are expected to be moved during the holiday season. For the year 2012 Apple’s revenues are up 30% from last year, while the entire PC market dropped 4% this year.

Meanwhile, the company can also brag about 49 million iPhones sold and Cihra expects Apple to post a $56.1 billion revenue in the December quarter, a stunning number for any company in the world. The September 2012 quarter generated sales of 27 million units for the iPhone and 17 million iPads, plus 4.9 million Macs and 5.7 million iPods, with revenue of $36.5 billion. The choice to phase out the iPad 2 is logical, since at the current price point it would rival the newly arrived model and also eat up from the production capacity of the partner factories.